During the 1870s a sea captain by the name of Lorenzo Baker threw some green bananas on his ship bound from Port Antonio, Jamaica to Boston. The bananas were ripe when he landed and he sold them all in a matter of minutes at a handsome profit. Thus the banana industry was born. Sometime later he met Minor Cooper Keith who ran the Atlantic railway in Costa Rica. What did these two men establish in 1899?

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Did this help Costa Rica to develop?

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How was the organization of the coffee industry different between Costa Rica and Guatemala?

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How would you characterize the “labor mobilization system” of Guatemala? What were the important “pillars” that this system rested upon?

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How do the foreign banana companies enter the Guatemala story?

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Did the coffee industry in El Salvador develop like that in Guatemala?